Yesterday Apple TV+ released a new Tom Hanks movie, Finch. After the kids went to bed, I dove into this post-apocalyptic introspection movie.

Tom Hanks plays the title character, Finch. He's an engineer living alone in the hostile remains of the planet after it's been devastated by solar flares and an apparent swift war that followed. Throughout the film, he's the only person we see, save flashbacks. There are a couple people sounds, and one glance at something that moves, and a car follows theirs at one point, but no other people in the movie. There's his dog, Goodyear, a little rover named Dewey, and he builds a robot, who chooses the name Jeff. That's the whole cast. The rest is scenery and interaction between them, and occasional story from the past.

It's a good little watch. A little dark, as you might expect a post-apocalyptic movie to be, and in the right spots.The movie starts with Finch looking for supplies with Dewey. They race back to safety just as a huge storm hits. He spends some time cleaning up and with is dog. Then he finishes building Jeff, and teaches him the four laws of robotics--the three we're familiar with, and the fourth is to always preserve the dog. They spend a little time training Jeff to move and participate, with some humorous moments, before heading out before an even bigger storm arrives.

Most of that is in the previews. No real spoilers follow, but just in case...

From there it's a little bit of a road-trip movie. Their adventures are about self-preservation, and teaching Jeff to care for Goodyear. There are fears that Finch clearly has, especially concerning other people, but he tries to remain optimistic, and chooses to not share the reasons for his concerns with Jeff. Finch is also secretive about his waning health. It seems he has radiation poisoning, perhaps cancer, or is just falling victim to the environment in other ways.

They do have a couple encounters along the way. One we're left to be unsure of. It seems Jeff sees something, but doesn't say anything, Finch never notices, and nothing bad happens. The other is all anxiety and tension, with a narrow escape, but no direct interaction.

This isolationist approach to a small, and evidently uncivilized surviving population is well done. The extreme changes to the environment, the least of which are daily temperatures near 150°F and skin-boiling UV radiation, would certainly reduce survivability for almost everyone to a pretty short time. That he's survived for years, at least based on the expiration date on some popcorn they find, is amazing. That there are others who also survive, would lead to some fair consideration that they'd not necessarily be cooperative. Certainly not by default.

The scenery was believable and clearly a protagonist on its own. Finch gives hints to some of what may have caused this; starting with solar flares, ending with unspecified "EMPs" and "we did the rest," hinting at some reactions against each other in the flailing end of civilization. I guess we have to imagine that in the destruction and lack of society remaining after a big solar storm, factions would fight or countries would go to war for what might remain. For the years after that, finding cans of soup and other long-lived shelf products would get hard, and growing crops outdoors seemed impossible, so it would really be the survival at night or in the shadows.

The film was well shot. The scenes were believable for the most part, and Finch did a respectable job balancing what he knew with what he wanted Jeff to know. His concern for the dog seemed to be a lot more about his mortality than love for Goodyear, but even that came through well. Not Tom Hanks' first compelling story with a dog, after all.

The "character alone" seems to be a bit of a Tom Hanks thing now. He was literally alone most of the movie Cast Away, and was alone through unique situations or isolation, such as between interactions in The Terminal, traveling with a resistant companion in News of the World, or surrounded by hostiles as captive in Captain Phillips. He does great alone; better than most. I can't think of anyone who might have pulled off any of these roles better.

This was a good "character alone" movie, which stretched into developing the other character. So, I guess he was really only mostly alone in this one. But he was the only human we see in the present.